Ladies and gentlemen, Weird Al Yankovic.
Hello again everyone. Since we're nearing the end of another month, I thought it was time I checked in with another of my monthly update posts. This month has certainly been better than the last one, though this one has had its low points. For one thing, I had failed to get a job I had interviewed for a few weeks ago around the start of the month. Of course that's not a great tragedy because during the interview I thought that maybe the job wouldn't be the best fit for me, so in a weird way I'm actually a little relieved.
The major low point of the month actually had to do with my car. Remember last time how I talked about how I had damaged my car's rear bumper thanks to that idiot van driver in the parking lot? Well at least two days after I arranged the appointment at the bodyshop, my car's dashboard told me that the vehicle was due for an oil change. So I had to hastily arrange an appointment at my mechanic to get that done before the car went into the bodyshop. During those oil change appointments they look for anything else that's wrong with the car, and of course they found two things.
The first problem was a burned out taillight, which wasn't a big deal to replace. The second problem however was a little more expensive. A ball joint that connected the right front wheel to the rest of the undercarriage had apparently come loose, so that needed to be replaced. I wound up having to make a second appointment with my mechanic to replace that, and I had to wait until after the car was out of the bodyshop to make it. The good news is my dad paid for half the costs for the bodyshop work and the ball joint replacement.
Actually, he paid a little less than half of the ball joint replacement, but then I actually paid for little less than half the cost for the bodyshop work, so it evens out. In any case, the cost of the oil change, plus the taillight replacement, plus the portion I paid for the bodyshop work, plus what I paid for the ball joint replacement, all adds up to a grand total of $1,396.66. That's how much I had to spend on my car this month. Now that total hardly bankrupted me, but it still hurt to pay that much.
Now to the major highlight of the month, and the reason I choose Weird Al's parody of "Piano Man" for the opening of this post. The day after I got my car back from the bodyshop, I drove out and saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Those of you who follow these posts regularly may recall that I talked about that movie (and also did a somewhat incoherent rant about Spider-Man and the MCU). Unfortunately some of my comments about the movie were based on a tailer I saw on YouTube that turned out to be a deep fake, so I'd like to apologize for that. Who knew that one of the biggest dangers of A.I. would be misinformation?
Before I get into the movie, I feel I should talk about the theater I saw the movie in. They presented the movie in 3-D, which is nothing new to me of course. On top to that though, the seats in the theater were rigged like a carnival ride, and moved and vibrated in synch with the action in the film. These seats also blew air in my face to simulate environmental conditions in the film. I don't know if I really needed to feel the recoil of the Punisher's machine gun to fully enjoy the film, but it was part of the experience.
As for the movie itself, it was way better than I expected it to be. I'd certainly call it a suitable apology for Spider-Man: No Way Home. I do have to give the movie major points for the character they cast as their main villain, as it was not a chatracter I expected to see at all. It's also interesting to note how the only actual Spider-Man villains in the movie, Scorpion and Tombstone only played very marginal roles (Tombstone's appearance was a cameo at best). Of course I suppose this shouldn't be much of a shock, as most of the villains in Spider-Man's rogues gallery have all been used in previous films and/or burned by Sony's disastrous attempt to make a Spider-Man cinematic universe separate from the MCU. Nobody wants to see Jared Leto reprise his role as Morbius.
Hell, nobody wants to see Jared Leto, period!
There were other things about Spider-Man: Brand New Day that I liked. Spidey's relationship with the Punisher was... interesting, to say the least. I also really liked that he had an A.I. assistant linked to his mask, which is not only a nice little nod to this version of Spider-Man's relationship to Iron Man in the MCU, it's also just something that's very modern for him to have in this day and age. Of course the real icing on the cake was Spider-Man working closely with a police detective. He now has his own Commissioner Gordon (or Kaoru Ichijo, to make a Kamen Rider Kuuga reference).
While there was a lot about this movie that I liked, there were a few small problems I had with it too. For one thing, they didn't show what this version of Peter Parker does for his day job. It didn't seem like he was working as a photographer for there Daily Bugle, that much is for sure. I feel like I can kind of give them a pass on that though, because it seemed like a small and relatively unimportant detail for the story they were trying to tell. Still, it would've been kind of nice to know where he got the money for all of that equipment he had in his apartment.
Another problem I had with the movie was the plot point of Spider-Man's powers going haywire . That's hardly a new things. Hell, that was a major part of the plot in Spider-Man 2. Still, I feel like I can give them a pass on that too since I think the original comics also did something similar. Can't blame them for drawing on the original source material.
The last problem I had with Spider-Man: Brand New Day was I felt like the ending left certain things unresolved. Of course there was a little teaser at the end of the credits saying that this version of Spider-Man will be back, so they'll either do a sequel or they'll try and resolve at least some of this stuff in the next convoluted Avengers crossover. I'm honestly on the fence about going to see Avengers: Doomsday. It certainly doesn't help that the movie is set to come out in mid-December. Not only has that been a bad time for me to go out to a theater to see a movie for the last couple of years, but Spider-Man: No Way Home came out in theaters in mid-December, and look how that turned out.
There are a couple of current event items I'd like to touch on before closing this post. Some of you reading may have heard that the Crunchyroll Store has stopped carrying physical manga and light novels, and that's on top of them making the store exclusive to certain membership tiers. Now I'm no financial wiz, but it seems to me like they're just turning away money with that move. Of course this move only further confirms that they actually acquired RightStuf just so they could eliminate competition for their online store. Meanwhile they haven't really done much to actually make their online store into something that people would want to shop from.
The other bit of news I wanted to mention is a reminder that the new Madoka Magica movie comes out in Japanese theaters tomorrow. Of course we still don't know when those of us in the U.S. will actually get to see it. I'm hoping that Crunchyroll will start streaming the movie in the next month or so (and yes, I'm aware that's a weird comment to make after just slamming the site's online store only moments ago). A blu-ray release of the film may take a little longer unfortunately. This is an Aniplex title though, so hopefully a blu-ray release will happen in the next year or so.
I think that covers it for this month's post. Sorry it mostly turned into a movie review. Until we meet again next time.
